The Giants Outgained Houston Texans by 181 Yards, Needed Overtime, and the Tape Says They Won by Two Touchdowns

THE GIANTS DID EVERYTHING BUT WIN BY TWO TOUCHDOWNS

New York Giants 27, Houston Texans 21, in overtime. Read that and you think a coin flip went the Giants' way. Now read the box score. The Giants had 420 yards and Houston Texans had 239. The Giants averaged 6.56 a play and Houston Texans averaged 4.35. Houston Texans went 3 for 12 on third down. Nobody turned the ball over. Houston Texans' offense spent the afternoon asking for a ride.

We run every play through a tape that scores how much it helped a team score, then turns the total into a point margin. The tape had the Giants by 14.4. The scoreboard said 6. That 8.4-point gap is the biggest of the week in a game with no defensive touchdown, and it is a big part of why the New York Giants climb three spots in our ratings.

The weird part is J.J. McCarthy. No touchdown passes, and all three of his sacks were charted as his fault. He was still plus 8.0 CPOE (completion percentage over expected, how he did against an average quarterback on the same throws) and Cam Skattebo ran for 124 yards. Ugly stat line, good football. Go figure.

THE WINS THE TAPE DOES NOT BUY

Four teams got a kinder scoreboard than their plays deserved.

Detroit Lions beat Green Bay Packers 20-17 while losing two fumbles and going 2 for 6 in the red zone. The tape had Green Bay Packers by 4.9. Atlanta Falcons beat San Francisco 49ers 29-20 because San Francisco 49ers gave it away four times and Atlanta Falcons gave it away zero. EPA per play was close to dead even. Tennessee Titans lost to Cleveland Browns by three on a tape that says Cleveland Browns by ten: Cleveland Browns had 491 yards at 7.44 a play.

And then there is Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 43-13 looks like a statement. Here is the fine print: 62 of the game's 112 snaps were garbage time, and one of the touchdowns was a 32-yard fumble return by Kancey, which the tape does not count because it is not an offensive play. Tampa Bay Buccaneers ran the ball 47 times and Baker Mayfield dropped back 11. B. Irving went for 106 and two scores on 24 carries, and Carolina Panthers' side of it was five sacks taken and three giveaways. Our ratings have the Bucs 12th, up nine places, because that game only counts for the 50 snaps that were actually competitive.

SEATTLE HELD KANSAS CITY TO 213 YARDS AND STILL LEFT POINTS ON THE FIELD

Seattle Seahawks won 20-3 and the tape says it should have been about 12. Seattle Seahawks went 11 for 16 on third down, took zero sacks and gained 410 yards, then went 0 for 3 on red zone touchdowns and settled for field goals. Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught 9 for 150 and a score. On the other side, Patrick Mahomes threw for 165 yards with an interception and Kansas City Chiefs never got inside the Seattle Seahawks 20 all day.

THE QUARTERBACKS

Best by EPA per dropback with 20 or more clean dropbacks: Matthew Stafford, Joe Burrow, Malik Willis, Dak Prescott and Caleb Williams. Burrow threw four touchdowns and was plus 17.7 CPOE.

Worst: Daniel Jones, Jacoby Brissett, Mahomes. Brissett threw 51 passes, and that is a lot of passes to be minus 0.221 a dropback.

The charting data lets us sort out whose fault the sacks were. Aaron Rodgers took three and all three were on him. McCarthy took three and all three were on him. Tyler Shough took two, same story. Tyler Huntley took four against Cincinnati Bengals and none were charted as his, and Daniel Jones took four and none were his either. Bryce Young took five and zero were his. That is the offensive line and the playcalling, not the quarterback.

LOOKED BETTER THAN THEY WERE

J. Gibbs of Detroit Lions carried 29 times for 116 yards and was minus 6.64 in expected points, with a lost fumble. Brissett's 272 yards came on 51 attempts with three drops and two interception-worthy throws. Brock Purdy threw for 288 and two picks.

LOOKED WORSE THAN THEY WERE

Drake Maye threw for 321 yards, plus 13.9 CPOE and plus 0.375 a dropback and his team lost, and the player-tracking data agrees he was good. Huntley threw for 298 in a 22-point loss and was plus 0.302 a dropback. Z. Flowers went for 137 yards and nobody noticed, because Baltimore Ravens lost 35-13.

THE RANKINGS

We rebuilt how we rate teams this week and tested it first. The rating blends two things, opponent-adjusted EPA per play and opponent-adjusted success rate, counts every game this season and weights each game by how many competitive snaps it had. We checked it by predicting each game from the games before it, and it beat plain EPA and beat versions that gave extra credit to recent games. That is 75 games, so it is a lean, not a law.

San Francisco is first, Jacksonville second, Cincinnati third, Seattle fourth and Chicago fifth. The bottom five are Tennessee, the Chargers, Miami, Philadelphia and Las Vegas. Seattle is up on the strength of the best defense by EPA in the league. Tampa Bay is 12th, and the Rams are sixth after the 35-21 win in Las Vegas.

THE COACHING FLAG

Not a grade, just a direction. In close, early-down situations the Chargers pass 13.1 points less than the model expects, Tennessee Titans 12.0 less and Tampa Bay Buccaneers 10.1 less. Cincinnati Bengals passes 9.2 points more than expected and Carolina Panthers 9.6 more. Samples are small.

NEXT WEEK

Carolina Panthers at Green Bay Packers on Thursday, 17th in our ratings against 22nd. Chicago Bears visits Seattle Seahawks on Monday night. San Francisco 49ers, Houston Texans, the Giants and New Orleans Saints are on bye.